Hello everyone, Just wanted to update you about the Fluoroquinolone DNA damage preliminary study with Exogen Bio. At this time, we have 83 folks enrolled via the Indiegogo Campaign that ended back in March. Exogen has just gone live with a new pre-order page on their website. That means that anyone who is still interested in being involved can do so by completing the following steps: 1) Send me an email at fqdnastudy@gmail confirming your interest and with your full name, shipping address and the email address you will be using for step 2. Also, if you use a pseudonym on Facebook, please include that so that I can confirm you for step 3. 2) Go to exogenbio and pre-order a kit ($99 US residents, $99 USD plus shipping for international residents). 3) Search Facebook for FQ DNA Study Participants and request to join. This is not mandatory, however, it is where we will be able to have discussions with each other and with the co-founders of Exogen Bio about the process as well as the results. Any questions? Please do not hesitate to ask. Feel free to email me at fqdnastudy@gmail For those of you who weren’t a part of this group back in February/March, here is a recap of what it is all about. I would also encourage you to explore their website and watch their video: *********************************************************************************************** Invitation to participate in a Fluoroquinolone DNA damage preliminary study Exogen Biotechnology Inc (exogenbio/) has invited those suffering from Fluoroquinolone Toxicity to participate as citizen scientists in a preliminary study to see if Exogen’s technology can measure a difference in DNA damage levels between our group and their general population control group. If the preliminary study results in some compelling data, Exogen may follow up with a larger scale study. Who is Exogen Biotechnology? Exogen Biotechnology is a health startup aimed at developing cutting-edge technologies for individuals to monitor damage to their DNA and to assess their DNA repair capacities for the purposes of personalized and preventive health care. Exogen’s technological platform for assessing DNA damage and repair capacities was developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory by a team of scientists and engineers. Exogen was founded in 2012 to translate this new technology to enable rapid processing of human blood specimens and to make testing services affordable and accessible to the public. How will this potentially help us? If our DNA demonstrates that it has more damage than the general population, this could be huge in validating our condition. It might be the first step in developing a diagnostic tool for evaluating an individual’s degree of FQ Toxicity. It also might garner enough attention and interest within the scientific community to raise the alert level for Fluoroquinolone use. Exogen’s preliminary work has already demonstrated that DNA damage increases as we age and that former cancer patients had the highest level of DNA damage for their age group. How is Exogen funded? Exogen received an Innovation Grant from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In addition to some Angel Investors, Exogen is crowd funding from the public through their Indiegogo campaign. They do not have any ties to pharmaceutical companies or biotech companies and receive no funding from them. What about privacy? From their Indiegogo site: “We encourage you to share your personal data with us to link DNA damage with specific diseases, and environmental and lifestyle factors, but it is not required. For your safety, your questionnaire data and your results will be anonymized and kept private. We will ensure that capturing and storing of your data will be HIPAA compliant. The reason for this citizen science study is to gather data to better learn about DNA damage.” And, “Once we receive your samples, we will only analyze your blood for DNA double-strand break using our proprietary technology. When we are done, we will safely and securely dispose of all samples. High-resolution images, similar to an ultra high-resolution picture from a phone camera, of your blood cells, will be taken and securely stored. We send your DNA double-strand break results to you securely. That is your personal DNA data that will always be exportable. We will use this data for research, but it will never be identifiable to you.” Who can participate in the preliminary study? Individuals from around the world, who are suffering from fluoroquinolone toxicity, are invited to participate. Will it cost me anything? Yes. This is a citizen science program, meaning that we help fund the project by covering the cost of materials, shipping etc. Residents of the US may pre-order a kit for $99 USD. Those outside of the US may pre-order a kit for $99 USD plus shipping (there is a shipping calculator on the check out page).
Posted on: Mon, 02 Jun 2014 23:57:49 +0000
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